


A Story About a Kind Boy

by RoodAwakening



Category: Life Is Strange 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Blood Brothers, Gen, Puerto Lobos, Sean Diaz Character Study, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25690231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoodAwakening/pseuds/RoodAwakening
Summary: Blood Brothers. Sean Diaz always tried to do what is right, but then life took everything from him except for his brother. In their current life in Puerto Lobos, Sean and his brother Daniel steal money from a couple of drug dealers, but the drug dealers retaliate by kidnapping Daniel. Now Sean will do whatever it takes to get his brother back.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

_Fifteen Miles Outside Puerto Lobos, Mexico_

_May 2024_

_Six Years After the Incidents at the Border_

Sean Diaz pulls the binoculars to his one good eye to study the meth lab three miles away. A desert wind stings his face, and Sean’s brother Daniel, a gawky seventeen-year-old, lies on the hood of their garage’s tow truck. A trio of pebbles twirl above Daniel’s open palm, spun by his powers. “How long are we going to be out here?” he whines.

The meth lab is an old, rusted-out RV. Clearly an idea that these two drug dealers, Vicente Herrera and Arial Aguilar, lifted after binging _Breaking Bad_. The RV is brown, a relic from maybe the 1970s. Heh. Dad had a 70s muscle car that he bought as a teenager in Mexico. Maybe it and this RV came from the same dealership, a lifetime ago.

Vicente is a thin man with thick-rimmed glasses. His jeans are cuffed at the ankles above his sneakers. Dude has a different pair of kicks for every day of the week. Arial is broad-shouldered, looks like he might have been a wrestler in school. Definitely not as stylish as Vince. In the two months the Diaz brothers have been staking them out, Sean has never seen Arial _not_ in basketball shorts.

The two men load cardboard moving boxes from the RV to the back of a blue, dust-covered pickup truck. Inside the boxes are methamphetamine, which word on the street says is not good quality. Sean wouldn’t know. Doing illicit drugs is one line he hasn’t crossed yet.

Vicente and Arial have finished their latest cook and are on their way to deliver their goods to a couple of low-tier “distributors,” but mostly they sell directly to impoverished addicts. Sean knows their routines inside-and-out. Where their houses are. Whose arms Arial crawls into when he’s lonely. Where Vicente drinks when he sad before ordering a new pair of sneakers online.

They will be gone from the RV for two whole days.

Which means the safe with their money inside it will be unguarded.

Pretty easy for a certain teenaged superwolf to pull it through one of the RV’s windows.

Arial and Vicente will come back with handfuls of cash taken from the weak and exploitable—or assholes who prey on the weak and exploitable—and that safe will be blown open and all of that money gone.

Vanished into the hands of the Wolf Brothers.

Arial loads the last box into the pickup truck, and Vicente climbs into the driver’s seat. Across the wind, the doors slam, the engine rumbles, and a dust billows from the truck’s tires.

“It’s go time,” Sean says, lowering the binoculars.

The pebbles clatter as they fall into Daniel’s palm. His fingers close around them, but otherwise, he does not move. “I don’t know if we should do this, Sean.”

“These two assholes are _nothing_ ,” Sean says, hiding his annoyance that Daniel is choosing to question two-months of planning _now_. Daniel’s skinny arms jut out of his tanktop. He’s been talking about getting a tattoo, but it hasn’t happened yet. Over their almost-seven years in Puerto Lobos, Daniel has grown longer but not older. He’s man-sized, but still a child. Still needs Sean to be responsible for him. “What are you worried about, _enano_?”

“Vicente gave that money to his sister,” Daniel says. “The one with the baby.”

“That was not generosity—it was barely half-a-month’s rent,” Sean says. “Vince has enough for those stupid shoes he buys.”

“I think his shoes are pretty cool.” Daniel sits up, and he traces a line in the dust on the hood, leaving a trail of white behind his finger. A piece of hair sticks to his forehead. “This is not like when we went after those gangs.”

“We got so lucky that didn’t end bad, bro,” Sean says. “If you go after a pack of wolves, you don’t try to take on the biggest, meanest wolf. You isolate, go after the weakest one. That is these guys.”

“They seem like two dudes who are hard on their luck,” Daniel says.

“They are _bad_ guys,” Sean says, and sweat sticks his t-shirt to his chest as he throws his hands into the air. “Remember that lady we saw, with the eyes sunken into her face? She looked like a skeleton. She was neglecting her baby daughter, Daniel. All because of the shit these assholes give to her.”

“I guess.” Daniel shrugs his bony shoulders. A small puff of dust rises from his sneakers as his feet hit the ground. He opens his palm, and the three pebbles float above his hand, and he sends them soaring one-by-one across the desert.

It reminds Sean of teaching him to skip stones. Years ago. When Sean didn’t yet realize how _different_ their lives were.

“How do we know _we_ aren’t the bad guys?” Daniel says. “When we first got here, ripping people off made sense. We didn’t have anything. But we have the garage now. We don’t _need_ this money.”

Sean’s lip stings as his teeth dig into it.

First, he doesn’t think of his own actions as “good” or “bad” anymore, only what “needs” to be done.

And , second, the people in Puerto Lobos are good, loyal people—to a fault. Though Esteban Diaz’s family had a good name, nobody wants to give his outsider, American sons a chance to fix their cars over the mechanics they have been going to for decades. And last week, Daniel spent an entire day towing an old woman’s car then fixing it, only to charge her twenty-five percent of the cost because “she was as broke as the car was.” And while Sean admires his brother’s kindness—Sean made a lot of sacrifices so Daniel could stay kind—Daniel does that shit at least once a month, and the garage is in the red more often than it’s not.

A sigh scrapes Sean’s throat as he punches the hood of the truck—not hard, but gentle, like he might sock his brother in the shoulder. “Look, that money would let us breathe easy for the rest of the summer. Maybe to winter. A lot of numbers in our books would balance with it. I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. But I don’t think taking money from drug dealers to get by makes us ‘the bad guys.’ It’s your call, though. I won’t make you do this if you don’t want to, _enano_.”

Daniel’s fingertips drum an offbeat rhythm on the hood of the truck. A tiny bead of sweat rolls off his temple, and across the cheek of his still baby face.

“Okay, Sean, let’s do it,” he says. “I trust you.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Seattle, Washington_

_July 2007_

_Nine Years Before the Death of Esteban Diaz_

“Don’t you trust me, little buddy?” six-year-old Sean Diaz says as he holds his hand out to the duckling.

Like the duckling, Sean is tiny. The park’s wooden bridge warms his bare feet, and his swim trunks are damp from playing in the streams of water at the splash pad. The duckling flaps its fuzzy, nubs of wings and squeaks in a panic; fishing line has wrapped around his webbed foot, tying him to the bridge’s wooden planks.

In the creek below, his mother duck and siblings quack frantically: _Quack-quack! Why didn’t he make the jump? Quack-quack!_

Sean turns to his mother. She grips the handle of a stroller with Sean’s tiny, baby brother inside. “ _Mamá, necesita ayuda,_ ” Sean says. He did this a lot back then, slipping into Spanish without realizing it.

Mom isn’t as “friendly” as some other kids’ mothers, but that’s okay. She smiles, reaches into her purse, and hands him the small pair of scissors she uses to trim her fingernails. “Be careful.”

The duckling squirms, bounces around like a fuzzy tennis ball as Sean grips the fishing line and inches the scissors close to the bird’s leg. “Easy, buddy,” Sean says. “I’m going to get you free, so you don’t get in trouble with your mom, okay?” When Sean snips the line, the duckling makes three short hops off the side of the bridge. It drops to the water, barely making a splash, and swims to his siblings and mother, who quack happily at him.

Sean leans over the side and waves to the duck family as they swim off to the shore.

“Let’s sit down for a minute,” Mom says as she takes the scissors back. There’s something wrong with her eyes, almost like she is about to cry.

But why would she be crying? She didn’t trip or anything. Nothing sad happened. But Mom has seemed about to cry a lot lately.

“Did I do something to make you sad?” Sean asks.

“Of course not,” she says. She sits down on a bench, and Sean climbs onto the seat beside her. He shoves a hand into the stroller, and though his little brother is sleeping, baby Daniel wraps a chubby fist around his finger, squeezing it tightly. Some of his friends hate their little brothers and sisters. And, yeah, it is annoying when Daniel cries. And it’s sad when Dad says they can’t play because Daniel needs attention. But Sean loves his chubby-cheeked _hermanito_ with all of his heart.

“You’re good boy,” Mom says. “A kind, sweet boy.”

“ _Papá_ says to be good so Daniel has someone to look up to. So my _hermanito_ knows what is right,” Sean says. Daniel’s fist bounces as Sean pulls against the baby’s grip.

“Come here,” Mom says, and Daniel lets go as Mom pulls Sean onto her lap. This is weird. Mom never holds him when he’s still wet from swimming. But now, she wraps her arms around him tightly, and Sean feels her nose against his hair as she takes in a long, slow breath, like she’s smelling him. “Sometimes,” she says quietly, “bad things happen, and they don’t have anything to do with you. It’s not because you’re a bad kid, okay? I want you to know you are the best kid, and no matter what happens, I hope you will always be a kind and happy boy.”

“I will, _mamá_ ,” Sean says, hugging her around the neck. “ _Te amo mucho_.”

“I love you too, Sean,” she whispers. “Very, very much.”

She hugged him tightly, so tightly that it almost hurt.

And he thought it was strange, but at six-years-old, he wasn’t sure why.

Until he woke up the next day, and his mother was gone.

# # #

_Diaz Repair Shop / Sean and Daniel’s House_

_Puerto Lobos, Mexico_

_June 2024_

_Three Weeks After Sean and Daniel Ripped Off Vicente and Arial_

Sean wipes the grease onto his jeans, and pulls his cellphone from his pocket. He unlocks it with a blackened thumb.

Still no message from Daniel. Goddammit.

The little asshole was supposed to be back an hour ago. He probably got distracted by a cute girl. Or petting an adorable dog. One time, he hung out with some ten-year-olds doing skateboard tricks by the fountain in the town square.

Sometimes Sean forgets Daniel is only a kid, that most kids don’t become adults when they turn sixteen.

Any moment now, Sean’s goofy, easily-distracted little brother will burst into the garage, say something like, “I made a new friend!”

Which is great. Awesome. But overhauling this engine is a _two_ -person job.

The scent of oil stings Sean’s nostrils as he shoves his head under the hood of the coup, and his muscles strain against his wrench, trying to open a stuck bolt without cracking the engine block. Daniel could do this by waving his hand. Everything is easier _for_ Daniel and _with_ Daniel, and of all the days for him to get caught up in whatever bullshit he is doing in town . . .

Someone stands in the open doorway of the garage. Their shadow stretches across the concrete workshop floor.

“I will be with you in a minute,” Sean says in Spanish: _Contigo en un momento._

The man replies, “ _Tómate tu tiempo,_ Sean Diaz”— _Take your time, Sean Diaz_.

The hairs on the back of Sean’s neck stand. He does not recognize the voice. He and Daniel know so few people in Puerto Lobos that a stranger knowing his name means there is about to be some bullshit.

The metal of the wrench digs into Sean’s palm as he tightens his grip around it. He pulls it back, ready to hurl it like a spear, as he rises from beneath the hood of the car.

Arial Aguilar stands in the open bay, wearing basketball shorts (of course) and a white-cutoff t-shirt. Shitty tattoos—barbed wire and skulls with bad compositions—cover arms that he crosses over his chest as he smirks.

Three weeks ago, Sean and his brother broke into Arial and his partner Vicente’s RV/meth lab. The door to the safe squealed as Daniel ripped it from its hinges. Inside was the equivalent of $10,000 American—twice as much as Sean expected scrubs like Arial and Vicente to have, and enough that Sean wondered if he and Daniel were fucking up by taking it.

But Sean kept his mouth shut and took the money.

“How can I help you, sir?” Sean says, politely. Even though he’s holding the wrench like a threat. He takes a step. Maybe he can inch close enough to wallop Arial in the head and—

“Let’s not start any shit,” Arial says, lifting his shirt to show the gun tucked into the waistband of his shorts. The word _FAMILIA_ is tattooed across his stomach. He drops his shirt and points a thumb at the tow truck outside that says _Diaz Repair Shop_ across the passenger’s-side door. “Little tip—next time you stalk the area’s two top drug dealers, don’t do it in the company car.”

Sean laughs. “You and Vicente aren’t even in the top-ten drug dealers in small-ass Puerto Lobos.”

Then Arial reaches into his pocket and tosses something at him.

The rectangle soars through the air, a blue blur, and Sean drops his wrench to the floor with a _clang_ to catch it.

It’s a cell phone.

The case is a faded image of Captain America’s shield. The crack in the screen has been there since the day after the phone was purchased. And the background is a photo of Ynez, the girl Daniel is _still_ hung up on though they broke up months ago.

A notification says it has a message from _Hermano_ : _where the fuck are you dude???_

It’s Daniel’s phone.

Arial and Vicente have Daniel.

“I assume you know your brother’s password,” Arial says. “Look at the recent photos.”

Sean’s thumbs tremble as he enters Daniel’s password: 2007, the year Daniel was born. A dumb, unsafe password, from a kid who has _always_ been too-trusting. There are about twenty photos of Daniel lying on a couch. His wrists are tied together. A bandana blindfolds his eyes. A purple bruise darkens his cheek.

Sean squeezes the cellphone so tightly the crack creeps further across the screen.

“He is alive,” Arial says, picking up one of the ink pens from by the cash register on the counter. “We hit him with some tranquilizers, something strong enough for pigs. And _maybe_ I roughed him up a little, but I was pretty pissed when we found our money gone.” Arial grins, his mouth filled with too-straight white teeth. “But that’s all the payback we’re after. All we want is our money. You bring our cash to the docks at 11:00 tonight, and we’ll give you your brother. Stay out of our business, and we’ll call it all good.”

The muscles in Sean’s body _scream_ at him to tackle Arial, to pick up the wrench and pound that fat, stupid head into a pulpy mess of blood and bone. But Arial has a gun and Daniel. And nothing—not the money, not the garage, not even Sean’s own life—is more important than his brother.

Like always, it’s not a real choice.

“You have a deal,” Sean says, fingernails digging into his palm.

“No shit?” Arial laughs, clicking the pen before setting it back on the counter. He pulls out his own cell phone. “I thought we would do a lot of tough-guy back and forth bullshit. I was ready to have to pistol-whip you or something, but you’re not as stupid as I thought.” Arial hits a button on the phone, then presses it to his ear. “Yeah, Vince? Diaz says he’s in.”

And Sean’s jaw almost drops. Arial cannot be _this_ dumb.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Arial says after he hangs up.

“Hold on,” Sean says. “How do I know you and Vince won’t double-cross me?”

Arial’s finger draws a cross over his heart. “You have my word. Swear to God.”

“I don’t believe in God,” Sean says. “Let’s shake on it.”

Arial’s obnoxious smirk pulls his lip from those too-perfect teeth. “That is so old school.”

“I’m being serious.” Sean takes a step forward and holds out his hand. “My father raised me to have honor. A handshake is a sign of a man’s integrity.”

Arial eyes him, suspicious. But Sean is unarmed, so Arial shrugs, steps forward, and takes Sean’s hand. The calluses of Arial’s fingertips brush Sean’s knuckles.

“Hey, question—we staked you out and saw your brother lifting a car by waving his hands,” Arial says. “For years, the local gangs have had this superstition about ‘The Ghosts of Puerto Lobos.’ I always thought it was bullshit, but . . . is that you guys?”

“We think of ourselves as ‘The Wolf Brothers,’” Sean says, shaking Arial’s hand.

“That doesn’t make sense. Your brother moves things like a ‘ghost.’ He doesn’t rip things with teeth or claws.” One of the skulls tattooed on Arial’s bicep bounces up and down as he and Sean shake. It looks like it’s laughing. “And why ‘The Wolf _Brothers_ ’? Seems like a solo act—like _you_ don’t do anything.”

Arial grins, and his pearly teeth line up in a row.

Like prisoners about to be executed.

Sean jerks Arial forward and aims the point of his elbow straight at those fucking teeth.

The impact of Arial’s face travels up Sean’s arm as the man staggers backwards, but Sean hasn’t let go; he yanks Arial back like a yo-yo, and the man’s nose shatters against the bone in Sean’s forearm.

Hot blood warms the skin on Sean’s wrist.

“Motherfucker!” Arial coughs.

But Sean grabs the gun tucked into Arial’s shorts through the fabric of the man’s shirt.

Sean’s thumb finds the trigger.

And Arial is the type of dumbass who keeps the safety off.

The gunshot’s _bang_ reverberates through Sean’s bones and echoes off the walls of the garage.


	3. Chapter 3

_Cascade Middle School Football Field and Track_

_Seattle, Washington_

_October 2013_

_Three Years Before the Death of Esteban Diaz_

Thirteen-year-old Sean Diaz pumps his arms. The impact of his running shoes against the track travels up his skinny legs.

His teammates on the sidelines, his dad and brother cheering him from the stands—it’s all noise.

He’s closing in on the finish line.

And there is only one boy ahead of him.

Sean digs deep into his gut. Grits his teeth. Pushes himself though his thighs burn and his lung scream. He closes the distance between him and the other boy, can count the freckles on this other runner’s shoulders.

Only yards from the finish line.

If he digs even deeper—finds _more_ heart, _more_ determination—Sean can do this. His _first_ first-place of the season.

But just as Sean is about to overtake the other runner, the other boy cries out. His shins tangle together like Christmas lights pulled from the basement, and he drops, rolls, a mess of arms and legs skipping across the track like a stone.

Sean hops over the boy like he would ollie over a gap in the sidewalk.

But, a foot from the finish line, within spitting distance of the first place he has wanted so badly all summer, Sean Diaz stops. The stands are silent. Parents, siblings cover their worried faces. And the boy who had been beating Sean lies on the ground, clutching his knee as blood oozes between his fingers and tears stream down his face.

Because Sean has stopped, the other runners who have caught up stop too. Sean glances at the finish line. It is _right there_. He could win.

He’s worked so hard. He deserves to win a race.

 _But I didn’t earn this one_ , he thinks. He holds out his hand to the fallen runner. “You okay, man?”

The boy nods. “It just hurts,” he whimpers. But he takes Sean by the hand, and he winces as Sean pulls him to his feet.

Sean supports the boy’s weight on his shoulder as they hobble towards the finish line. “You were ahead the whole race. This is your win.”

The boy nods, grimaces as he holds back tears, and he hops across the white line on the track before limping to the side where his coach and a medic sit him on the concrete to bandage his wounds.

The crowd’s applause is muffled as Sean finishes the race in second place. Not the roar adulation he had wanted. He shuffles over to his team. “I’m sorry I let you down, Coach,” Sean says.

“Are you joking, kid?” Coach says, and Sean is pulled off balance into a macho side-hug. “That was an incredible act of sportsmanship. I am so very proud of you. And I know you will get it next time.

Sean smiles. He _was_ close to winning the race, wasn’t he? He’ll definitely get first next time.

Except there was no next time, not that year. Three days later he broke his leg at the skatepark, on a stupid dare from Ellery and Lyla, and had to sit out the rest of the season.

# # #

_Diaz Repair Shop_

_Puerto Lobos, Mexico_

_June 2024_

The skin of Arial’s wrists reddens as Sean tightens the ropes that hold the man’s hands together behind the chair. Sean’s fingers shape a knot that his father taught him while camping, and a small, quiet sting of guilt—barely a splinter—scratches his heart.

On the workbench is a photo of himself, Daniel, and Dad. It is one of the few photos Sean has of his father. Dad wears one of those dorky Christmas sweaters he loved unironically, but he stares in silent judgment:

_Are you tying up a man you shot in our family home, mijo? With the knots I taught you?_

Sean pushes damp hair off his forehead. His t-shirt is soaked with sweat, sticking to him like a second skin. He closed the doors of the garage, so nosy neighbors won’t see Arial or the blood, and the air of the workshop is already thick, heavy with summer heat.

Blood drips from Arial’s broken nose over his white shirt, and more blood blackens his shorts from the bullethole Sean put in his thigh.

“What do you think Vince is going to do to your brother if I’m not back?” Arial asks.

“One, you messed up by telling him we had a deal before you left here. Vicente won’t immediately think I had anything to do with it.” Sean reaches into Arial’s pocket, the fabric sticky with warm blood, and pulls out Arial’s cellphone. Arial struggles, but Sean presses the man’s calloused thumb against the touchpad, unlocking the screen. Sean opens Arial’s messages and types.

“I’m telling your partner that you swung by Lupita’s,” Sean says, and Arial’s brown irises seem to swallow the white of his eyes. “That _is_ the name of the girl you hook up with when you’re lonely, right? Wouldn’t be the first time you blew off something important because you were getting off, would it?”

“You lying, piece of shit!” Arial shouts, and he throws his body against the ropes. The chair dances on its legs, which clatter against the concrete. “We had a fucking deal!”

“According to this, it is 1:00 PM.” Sean holds the phone screen to Arial’s face. “11:00 is ten hours away. I want my brother _now_. So you’re going to tell me where he is, so I can pick him up. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

“Fuck you.” Arial hocks a loogie from the bowels of his throat and fires it past his lips.

It splatters against Sean’s glass eye and slides along his nose, hot and wet. Sean wipes the mucus with the back of his hand.

Arial grins, but Sean has done enough pretending-to-be-strong to recognize its fakeness. Arial’s teeth are so perfectly straight. Maybe he had braces when he was a kid. Sean had them when he was in middle school. When he broke his leg at the skatepark, he busted his mouth on the concrete. The braces tore up his lip, and he was more panicked that he had wasted Dad’s money by fucking up his teeth than the bone that stuck out from his leg.

Sean picks up a screwdriver and a rubber mallet from his workbench.

“What—what are you going to do?” Arial asks, tripping over his words, the toughness slipping from his voice.

“If you don’t tell me where my brother is, I am going to knock out a tooth,” Sean says quietly.

Arial scoffs. Smirks. Thinks Sean is bluffing.

So Sean pushes the screwdriver past Arial’s lip, sets it where the man’s top-left incisor meets soft, pink gum. Sean whacks the end of the screwdriver with the rubber mallet, and there’s a _snap_ , a sound like biting into a carrot.

Arial spits a bloody, broken tooth to the concrete. “You motherfucker!”

“Please tell me where Daniel is.”

“Fuck you!”

So Sean knocks out two more teeth, which Arial spits to the floor.

“I only want to know where my brother is,” Sean says. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You are lower than a snake,” Arial says. “You know that, you one-eyed piece of shit?”

The _one-eyed_ crack gets under Sean’s skin, so he swings the mallet at Arial’s face. It catches him on the eyebrow. The skin purples. He tears up, groans but doesn’t cry.

And Sean sets the blade of the screwdriver against that little, pinkish-brown triangle of flesh at the corner of Arial’s eye. Back when Sean was an honors-student, an AP Biology teacher called this the remains of a third eyelid, a vestigial organ, some leftover piece of earlier human evolution.

Sean points at the left side of his face. “I take this eyeball out every night. I think I could pop yours out of this socket pretty easily. Thing is, my eye is glass. Having your _real_ eye pulled out of your head? It hurts. A lot. And I was unconscious when it happened to me. So, do you want to tell me where my brother is?”

Sean’s stomach lurches. He isn’t 100% sure if this is big-talk or something he is ready to back up.

But the only thing that matters is saving Daniel.

Arial’s eyelid wraps around the metal of the screwdriver as he squeezes his eyes shut.

“Fine,” Arial whimpers. “Your brother is at Vince’s house.”

Sean pulls the screwdriver away from Arial’s face. “You kidnapped someone and took him back to one of your houses?”

“You’re torturing someone in yours!” Arial says. “Me and Vince, we aren’t _kidnappers_. We’re not like the local gangs or some assholes who hurt people to be hurting people. We’re only trying to pay the bills. There’s not jobs, not ones that let you take care of things, you know? We are trying to survive like you and your brother!”

“I get that,” Sean says. “Thanks for telling me where Daniel is.”

Arial keeps blubbering, but Sean tunes out the words as he sets the mallet and screwdriver onto his workbench.

Then he picks up a plastic garbage bag.

“Oh come on, man,” Arial stammers. “What are you doing now?”

“You know where we live,” Sean sighs. “You know about my brother’s powers.”

“But we made a deal! We shook hands and everything! What about all that shit you said about honor?”

“Wolves don’t care about honor,” Sean says, staring at the family photo. The Sean Diaz in the picture looks so happy, so innocent. Fifteen-years-old. A whole life ahead of him. That kid probably could have grown up to be a great man.

But instead, he became a wolf.

And wolves only care about protecting their pack.

He turns the photo face down so Esteban Diaz won’t see this.

Arial shouts, but his screams are muffled by the plastic bag that Sean pulls against the man’s face.


	4. Chapter 4

_Bear Station_

_State Route 7, Washington_

_October 31, 2016_

_Two Days After the Death of Esteban Diaz_

The plastic bag of chips crinkles in Sean Diaz’s hands.

His stomach rumbles so loudly that someone in the convenience mart _must_ hear it, but neither the woman at the counter nor the weird, bearded guy with the laptop look at him.

Fuck. _Everything_ hurts.

His feet are blistered from walking. His chest is tight, squeezed by sadness from Dad’s death and running away from home. His side hurts from sleeping on the ground. Panic sits at the base of his shoulders.

And his stomach aches from hunger.

He opens his wallet. Counts the money again for the millionth time. It’s still only six dollars.

All those allowances. All those hours working at Z-Mart. And this is all the money Sean has in the world, and it has to last him and Daniel for . . . he isn’t sure how long. It’s why he tried begging that white family outside. They had plenty of food, but the way they looked at him, like he was a cockroach not worth scraping off the bottom of their shoes—that almost hurt worse than the hunger.

Sean stands in an aisle with chips and salted peanuts, and he studies the orange flavor-blasting of the chip pictured on the bag in his hands. Daniel chats up the clerk about the puppy in the box on the floor, so she isn’t paying attention to Sean. Would be so easy to five-finger-discount these.

Sean has to feed Daniel. He has to make the money last.

So Sean slides the chips under his hoodie. But the bag rustles against his belly, and it’s like a knife twisting in his guts.

_Am I really stealing?_

_What would Dad think if he caught his sons stealing?_

_This isn’t right._

No matter how hard things are, _this_ is wrong, and doing the wrong thing will not make things easier. He is still Sean Diaz, and Sean Diaz is _not_ a thief. So Sean slides the chips out of his hoodie, grabs a hotdog from the self-serve station in the back, and pays for the food at the counter.

At least, he thinks as he counts the meager coins he gets back, it is an _honest_ meal.

A few minutes later, he is punched in the stomach, then chained to a pipe and kicked in the face.

And called a thug. And a thief.

Even though he was honest.

# # #

_Outside Vicente Herrera’s House_

_Puerto Lobos, Mexico_

_June 2024_

Sean sits in his tow truck, Arial’s gun in his lap. He changed clothes before he left, except for his sneakers since he only has the one pair, because he couldn’t drive around with a dead-man’s blood on him. He’s wearing a pair of Daniel’s sweat pants, (it was the first thing he grabbed), so the metal of the gun, chilled by the air conditioner, rests heavy against his thigh through the thin fabric.

Just in case, Sean has a screwdriver in his pocket. A duffle bag, stuffed with pesos and a backup plan, rests in the passenger’s seat.

The truck is parked outside Vicente Herrera’s house. The neighborhood reeks of weed, which wafts through the truck’s open windows. Arial had a point—it _is_ stupid for Sean to do extra-legal shit in a vehicle with his business/home address emblazoned on the side, but this is the only wheels he and Daniel own. Even with the garage and the stealing, it is fucking hard to start from scratch in a completely different country.

_Dad did it, though,_ Sean thinks. _And he did it honestly. He was a better man than me._

Loose shingles hang off the roof of Vicente’s house, and his pickup is parked outside. Sean opens the clip of the pistol. Three bullets. He _hates_ guns. Every time a gun enters his life, things get more fucked up. But he has to get his brother.

Plan A is to enter through the back. A house like this, with its foundation sinking, it can’t be hard to pop open a window or a door. Sean can sneak in, get the drop on Vicente. Tie him up at gunpoint and get Daniel out of here.

If that doesn’t work, then Plan B is . . .

“Freeze, asshole.”

To Sean’s left, Vicente Herrera stands in the street and points a gun through the truck’s open window.

Goddammit.

It’s funny. Having a gun pointed at him doesn’t flood Sean’s body with terror; it’s annoying, like when Daniel blasts his music too loudly at 1:00 AM. What was the first gun Sean had pointed at him? Was it that asshole who worked with Lisbeth? No, it was Merrill. Wait, actually it was the cop, wasn’t it? Or did that cop only aim at Dad?

Weird. Sean Diaz has had so many guns pointed at him that he can’t keep them straight anymore.

The lenses of Vicente’s glasses magnify his eyes into large, brown saucers. “Put the gun down, and step out of the truck,” he stammers. “Motherfucker.”

Sean tosses the gun out the passenger’s-side window where it lands in the yellowed grass of a neighbor’s yard with a _thump_. Sean holds up one hand, but he steps out of his truck with the duffle bag full of pesos.

“Drop the fucking bag!” Vicente shouts.

“Relax,” Sean says, and he slowly unzips the duffle to reveal the stacks of cash. “It’s your money. I know Arial said we were meeting at 11:00 tonight, but I wanted to get all this ugliness over with. I only want my brother. No trouble.”

“Yeah-fucking-right,” Vicente says. “Then why the hell did you have a gun?”

“In case you pulled a gun on me,” Sean says. “Which you are doing right now.”

“Where the fuck is Arial?”

_Tied up in my garage. Dead._

“How should I know?” Sean feels his voice slip, hopes this lie sounds convincing. “He delivered your message, and that was it. It looked like he was texting someone as he left.”

“Fucking Lupita,” Vicente mutters. He blinks behind those Weezer glasses. He’s wearing a blue t-shirt and skinny jeans. His shoes are Jordans, white and clean. Sean thought Vicente was older than him, but the man looks like a scared child. He might be as young as nineteen.

Vicente’s arms tremble. The gun lowers.

Sean’s elbow stings with a cut from Arial’s teeth; he could probably throw a forearm at this asshole’s face, wrest that gun away.

“All you want is your brother?” Vicente says, raising the pistol back to Sean’s face. “You swear to God?”

“Wouldn’t do much good to swear to a god I don’t believe in,” Sean says, raising his palm again. “But I promise no trouble if I get Daniel back.”

Vicente nods, and he motions Sean towards the house. The street is empty. Most of the houses are rundown, like Dad’s was when Sean and Daniel arrived in Puerto Lobos. This is the type of neighborhood where people mind their business, and Vicente could execute him without anyone saying shit to the police. Vicente follows behind as Sean carries the duffle bag up to the porch. The corner of one of the concrete steps crumbles beneath Sean’s feet.

The door opens to a living room. Inside, the paint chips off the walls, and a brown water stain darkens the ceiling. But a huge HD television with the latest PlayBox sits in the corner, surrounded by speakers and a subwoofer large enough to shake this shabby building apart. And lying on a leather couch is Daniel.

In an instant, Sean forgets about the gun pointed at him. Forgets to not make sudden moves. He dives to his brother. The kid’s ankles are tied with an extension cord; his wrists, with the cord from a gaming headset. The bruise on Daniel’s cheek swells Sean’s heart with rage, and he pulls off the bandana blindfolding his brother.

“Hey, _enano_ , wake up. It’s me. It’s Sean.”

Daniel’s eyes flutter open, glassy, the color washed from them. “Hey, Sean,” he says dreamily. He smiles, pats Sean on the cheek with a cool hand. Then his eyelids close like shades pulled down over windows.

“The tranquilizer should wear off in a couple of hours,” Vicente says, leaning against the wall. “And I’m sorry about the bruise.”

“No, you’re not,” Sean says. “Arial said he roughed Daniel up.”

“Arial is full of shit.” Vicente shakes his head. As he stares down at his Jordans, his glasses slide down his thin nose. “Arial is my bro, but he’s only the muscle because he _looks_ tough. He can’t back up anything he runs his mouth about. Daniel there got that bruise because he fell before we could catch him. I didn’t want to hurt him. I know what it’s like to be a brother.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Sean says. His foot nudges the duffle bag on the floor as he stands to face Vicente. In the back of his mind, he knows this is stupid, telling off the guy who has a gun in his hand. But this asshole is trying to play a “sympathy” card that is an obvious attempt at manipulation, and Sean hasn’t survived by falling for bullshit. “Do _not_ act like being ‘good friends’ with the guy you sell meth with is the same as being brothers. You assholes drugged my brother, hurt him, and kidnapped him. You do not get how much that pisses me off.”

The air conditioner hanging out the window rattles, but heat hangs heavy in the air. Sweat rises on the back of Sean’s neck. He eyes the duffle bag on the floor by his feet, twitches his fingers, ready to reach for the screwdriver in his pocket. Waits for Vicente to do something with the gun.

Instead, Vicente pushes up his glasses. “How did you get into this life? You don’t start ripping off drug dealers because life is awesome. What happened to you?”

And Sean is caught off guard by the sincerity of the question. It throws him, hits him in a way the gun couldn’t.

What _did_ happen to Sean Diaz?

Vicente’s chest fills with air, and his ribs press against the fabric of his t-shirt. “For me, my mom died when I was real young. So my older sister raised us. She got pregnant, and the father left, and . . . it became too much. There’s not a lot of ways to take care of your family here. So I knew I had to.”

“So you started selling meth to weak people with addictions?”

“You steal money from meth dealers, so don’t act like you’re better,” Vicente says. “You’re lucky, you know, that you get to do this with your brother. I can’t give my sister all the money I want to because she would _kill_ me if she knew I made and sold drugs. She wanted me to go to university.”

Sean stares down at his seventeen-year-old brother, who is drugged on this couch in a meth dealer’s house thousands of miles from their home, their _real_ home, in Seattle. They aren’t even in their home country. Sure, Daniel has learned Spanish but not well. The bullet scar Daniel got when he was ten at the border glows on his shoulder beside the strap of his tanktop. “We all want a better life for the people we love,” Sean says quietly. “Doesn’t mean we are the ones that can give it to them.”

The air conditioner whines, but besides that, the world seems deathly quiet. Like Sean is alone in a room with his thoughts and mistakes.

“Leave the money,” Vicente says finally. “Take your brother, and get out of here.”

Sean kneels and unties Daniel’s feet. But as he removes the cord around Daniel’s wrists, the floorboards creak behind him. Above the couch is a photo, framed of a boy and an older girl. The boy wears thick-rimmed glasses, and the girl looks like his sister.

In the reflection of the glass of the picture frame, Sean sees Vicente aim the gun at the back of his head.

Sean raises his hands and stands, slowly.

“Why do you have blood on your shoes?” Vicente asks. “Whose blood is it? Is it Arial’s?”

Sean turns around, keeps his palms out. He lifts his foot, like he would to see if he has stepped in something. Sure enough, blood stains the sole and toe of his shoe.

Vicente shakes. His eyes turn pink as he puts it together.

He knows that Arial is dead. That Sean Diaz is a thief. And a liar.

But Sean has to get himself and his brother out of here.

“I’m sorry,” Sean says, and he is surprised that he actually means it. “I know how it is to have some asshole walk into your life and take everything from you.”

Sean grabs the screwdriver from his pocket and drops to the floor.

The gun fires.

The gunshot rattles Sean’s eardrums and vibrates through his skull.

The bullet shatters the glass of the framed photo above Sean’s head, and as Sean hits the floor, he stabs the screwdriver into the duffle bag.

Buried beneath the pesos is a two-litter plastic soda bottle. Before Sean left, he filled it, one-quarter with bleach, one-quarter with ammonia. He held his breath, but his eye still watered as he screwed on the cap. The bottle bulged with chlorine gas as he buried it in the duffle bag beneath pesos, and he thought it was strange because as a kid, he was cleaning the garage and mixed these chemicals together. Dad went apoplectic. “You could have been seriously hurt, _mijo!_ ”

What would Dad say if he saw Sean doing the same thing in the middle of a gun fight?

Sean takes a breath deep enough to stretch his lungs as the gas leaks from the bag. The gas stings his eye as he kicks the bag towards Vicente. Immediately, Vicente coughs, gags, claws at his face with his free hand.

Vicente is off balance. So Sean stabs him twice in the thigh with the screwdriver. Vicente screams, but the screams are cut off by his coughs as the gas tears apart his lungs.

As Vicente wheezes on the floor, Sean slides his shoulder under Daniel. The kid is a lot heavier than he was at nine-years-old. Back then, Sean could easily carry his brother on his shoulders. Now, with poisonous gas filling the room, blinding him and forcing him not to breathe, it’s a struggle to get nearly-grown-ass-Daniel the few feet to the door.

But Sean makes it, and he kicks the door shut behind him. He takes a deep, aching breath of clean air then sets his brother on the porch.

And waits by the door, gripping the screwdriver like a knife.

When it opens, and Vicente stumbles out, retching, tears streaming down his face, and clutching the gun, Sean drives the screwdriver into the man’s shoulder.

Vicente howls as Sean forces the screwdriver deeper until the handle meets collarbone, then presses him against the side of the house. Blood draws a black circle on Vicente’s t-shirt, expands until it oozes down his chest.

“Why are you doing this?” Vicente whimpers, his voice broken, raspy. “I was going to let you go.”

“No, you weren’t,” Sean sighs. “I killed Arial. I wrecked your ability to take care of your sister. You said you know what it’s like to be a brother, so you know you weren’t going to let me get away with this.”

Sean releases the screwdriver, and Vicente slides down the side of the house, coughing and shivering as he sits on the porch. His eyes are red. The tears draw lines down his cheeks. His pants are dark with blood.

Sean picks up the gun.

“I get why you guys went after Daniel,” Sean says. “You saw his powers and thought you were taking out the strongest, meanest wolf in our pack. Thing is, Daniel is a good kid. I made a lot of sacrifices so he could be that way. He’s _not_ the meanest wolf in our pack.”

Sean presses the barrel of the gun under the soft skin between the bones of Vicente’s chin.

“Please,” Vicente stammers. “Don’t.” His eyes are large. Frightened. He really does look like a kid.

And Sean wonders if he ever looked like this, like some scared asshole who got in over his head.

“You shouldn’t have fucked with my brother,” Sean says quietly. He pulls the trigger, and red blood splatters over Vicente’s pretty, white shoes.


	5. Chapter 5

_May 2017_

_Sixty Miles Outside Haven Point, Nevada_

_Seven Months After the Death of Esteban Diaz_

The bruises on Sean Diaz’s face drill into his bones. The pain spreads through his skull like roots of a tree. His feet burn with blisters from walking across the desert. And his heart . . .

He’s breathing, but his heart is not beating.

He sits in the passenger’s seat of his mom’s car—a mother he thought had abandoned him forever. When he was little, he dreamt of _mamá_ coming back, and as he grew up, he imagined her showing up and slamming the door in her face. But everything is different, and Karen returning to his life is, like, the tenth biggest thing that has happened this year.

They have just rescued Daniel from a cult. Daniel sits in the backseat, quiet. All three of them are quiet. They’re driving through the desert.

And Sean has just killed somebody.

Murdered her, actually. Shot her dead.

When he closes his eye—which, fuck, there’s only one now—he feels the weight of the gun in his hand. The recoil of the trigger. Louder than the gunshot was the _thud_ of Lisbeth’s skull hitting the floor.

“Stop the car,” Sean says.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Karen says.

“Pull over!” Sean covers his mouth as he gags. The car jerks to a sudden stop, and hot vomit pours between his fingers. He throws open the door, uncovers his mouth, and the vomit splatters to the sand.

He bends over, heaves until the last bits of bitter bile falls past his lips.

But then

his heart

his dead heart

starts to pound

because he hears the sound

_that sound_

of Lisbeth’s skull

striking the ground

the smell of the gunpowder

and oh god

he killed her

and she’s dead

and he killed her

and

and

and

Sean runs.

Karen calls after him, but he runs, awkward, stumbling steps because he’s sore and probably concussed, and he keeps running until he trips and crashes to the ground. A cloud of dust rises around him.

The night sky is clear, and a thousand stars stare down at him in silent judgment.

It’s open land as far as he can see, but it hits him: he will never be free. Not from the guilt eating his chest. Not in the eyes of the law. Not from the knowledge that he has let his father down.

 _I am disappointed, mijo_ , is what Dad would say.

Sean has _murdered_ someone. And, sure, he did it so that Daniel _wouldn’t_ , but that doesn’t matter. This is the worst thing he has ever done.

This isn’t who he is.

Except you are the things you do.

And he did _this_.

So this is _exactly_ who he is.

And this realization splits him, the way an earthquake cleaves the earth into a canyon: Sean Diaz is a bad person.

He sniffles. A tear slides down his cheek. And there isn’t one coming out of the hole where his left eye used to be. And _that_ gets him, and he his sobbing and shaking, sitting on the desert floor, far from home, far from everything.

Far from the person Dad expected him to be.

“Sean?”

Sean looks over his shoulder, and in the moonlight, Daniel stands there with that dumb haircut and those horrible clothes Lisbeth put him in.

“Hey, _enano_ ,” Sean says, steadying his voice. “I’ll come back to the car soon. I just needed a minute.”

But Daniel doesn’t turn back. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t believe Sean’s bullshit that everything is okay. Instead, Daniel walks up, and Sean feels his brother’s arms wrap around him.

And Sean presses his face into Daniel’s chest and sobs. He feels like an asshole because he is sixteen-goddamn-years-old and he is crying on a little kid, but Sean cannot stop, and Daniel, without a word, holds him.

“I’m sorry, Daniel,” Sean says, getting control of himself. “I’m supposed to be strong for both of us. You deserve a better big brother.”

And though Daniel’s face is shadows, there’s enough moonlight to see the hurt in his eyes. “Sean, you’re the _best_ big brother. _I’m_ sorry I didn’t listen. I’m sorry I didn’t come with you when you got to the church. I’m sorry that I went with Finn and left you, and I am so, so sorry for . . . I’m sorry for everything. I promise, I will always listen to you from now on, and I will never leave you again.”

Sean feels those boney arms over his neck. And he presses his face into Daniel’s hair. And he isn’t sure if he feels better or only gets tired of feeling bad, but eventually he calms down enough to head back to the car.

# # #

_Diaz Repair Shop_

_Puerto Lobos, Mexico_

_June 2024_

Sean’s nose still burns from the chlorine gas when he pulls up to his and his brother’s house. He drags Daniel inside, sets his little brother in bed, and pulls off Daniel’s sneakers.

Then Sean goes to the garage where Arial’s dead body is still tied to the chair.

The plastic trash bag Sean used to suffocate him hides his face.

The police in Puerto Lobos don’t give a shit. Maybe police everywhere are like that, not caring about the people they are sworn to protect. But they won’t think anything about Vicente. Just some dead guy, shot up by a local gang. But if the police find a dead body in the Diaz garage, they will be obligated to ask questions.

If nothing else, the body will weird out customers.

But Sean needs the cover of night to dispose of it, and sunset isn’t for another couple of hours. So he picks up the rubber mallet from the floor, wipes the blood off it with a rag, and goes back to fixing the engine he was working on earlier this afternoon. He’s already behind schedule on this, and there’s no sense in wasting time.

# # #

After the sun sinks over the Pacific Ocean and drapes Puerto Lobos in darkness, Sean pulls the garbage bag off Arial’s face and fills it with old engine parts. When it’s heavy enough that he can barely lift it with one arm, he carries it and the rope that tied Arial to the chair out to his dilapidated boat that sits on the shore.

Then he goes back for Arial’s body. He drags it across the sand, and the body makes a soft _thud_ against the bottom of the boat. Sean pushes it off into the water, and he rows out a ways before he pull-starts the engine, just in case a neighbor is walking along the beach.

The sky is overcast, so Sean guides the boat straight into the inky, blackness of night. The boat isn’t much, barely big enough for him and Daniel to fit in, and it isn’t meant to trek across the ocean. But Sean pilots it past the point he knows to be safe, and drives further and further into the darkness. When he finally turns off the engine, bobbing up and down on the surface of the water, Puerto Lobos is only a dull glimmer in the distance.

Sean ties the bag of engine parts to Arial’s ankles, and then he pushes the body over the side. It floats, face down, tethered by the junk that sits in the bottom of the boat.

The way Arial’s arms outstretch and move with the water, it is like the body is making a snow angel.

The first dead body Sean ever saw, outside of a wake, was his father’s.

That day that cop shot Dad—Sean used to think about it every day.

Now, not so much.

He tosses the bag of junk, and it splashes cold water that lands on Sean’s arms. The bag sinks, and it drags Arial’s body with it. For a moment, Arial’s hands float above the surface, like he is a drowning man reaching up for help.

Sean watches until Arial has disappeared, and then he sits down in the boat. He places a cigarette in his mouth from the pack in his pocket. And he pulls out the Puerto Lobos lighter that his father gave him long ago.

With a flick of his thumb, it ignites.

But he doesn’t light his cigarette.

Instead, he stares at the orange flame glowing above his hand, the only light as he floats on an ocean enveloped by darkness.


	6. Chapter 6

_Wallace Falls State Park, Washington_

_July 2015_

_One Year and Three Months Before the Death of Esteban Diaz_

The flames of the campfire lick the marshmallow Sean’s father roasts, and though Sean laughs as Dad tells a story, it’s a façade. Inside, the fourteen-year-old is wracked with guilt.

Even though it meant canceling the all-night _Call of Duty_ fest with Ellery and Adam, Sean was stoked when Dad suggested a camping trip, only the two of them, no Daniel (who has been a real pain since Sean became a full-time babysitter).

But as they hiked, skipped stones, and then roasted hot dogs over the fire, it hit Sean how lucky he is to have Esteban Diaz as a father.

It’s not easy to raise two kids by yourself, and Dad totally kills it.

And last week, Sean lied to him.

So each story Dad tells about life in Puerto Lobos, each time Dad puts an arm around him, it feels like a knife in Sean’s guts. Because Dad _thinks_ he has this great son, but that’s a lie too. By keeping the truth from his father, the lie only gets bigger, the way a sickness spreads.

That guilt sits, like a lump of coal, in the pit of Sean’s stomach.

Dad wipes some sticky marshmallow bits of s’more from his fingers onto his jeans, and he pulls out his lighter. He holds it in his hands, and the orange glow of the fire glints off its dull silver plating. “I can’t believe you’re going to be fifteen next month, _mijo_. Starting tenth grade. You’re growing up too fast.”

“It’s not a big deal, Dad,” Sean says.

“It is, though. It is not easy growing up, and I know it is extra hard since your mother left. I have asked a lot of you, especially with Daniel.”

Dad holds out the lighter, and he nods for Sean to take it. It’s warm with Dad’s body heat, smooth from years of Dad running his thumb over its etching. The words _Puerto Lobos_ stare up at Sean as the fire crackles. This lighter has lit years of campfires and Fourth of July fireworks. It traveled with Dad from his hometown in Mexico, and it holds a whole history of Esteban Diaz that Sean only knows part of, that he hopes to hear someday.

Sean starts to hand the lighter back, but Dad holds up a palm. “You misunderstand, my son. That is yours now, Sean.”

Sean blinks. “I can’t take this, Pops.”

“I want you to have it,” Dad says. “Because I can see what a responsible and good man you are becoming.”

The words _responsible_ and _good_ hit Sean like a slap. He isn’t a _man_. A man wouldn’t lie to his _padre_. So Sean sniffles. Runs a fist under his nose. Feels stupid _and_ like a giant, lying fuck-up at the same time. A real man—a good and responsible one—wouldn’t break down like this either.

“My son, whatever is wrong?” Dad asks quietly.

“I lied to you, Pops,” Sean blurts. “Two weeks ago, when you gave me the twenty dollars—it wasn’t for fireworks. Lyla, Adam, Ellery, and me—we bought beer. I got drunk, and I _lied_ about it, and I’m sorry. I know I let you down.”

Sean isn’t crying. But he squeezes his eyes shut, and they sting. He tightens his grip around the lighter, and the campfire pops. He knows Dad is staring at him. Shaking his head. _I am shocked_ , he’ll say. Or _I am not angry, just disappointed_. He’s going to ask for the lighter back. He should. Sean doesn’t deserve it.

But instead, Dad laughs. “Sean, I already know about your drinking.”

“What?” Sean stammers.

“ _Mijo_ , you were throwing up at 2:00 AM. I know what a hangover looks like. You did not get up until noon, and when you did, you looked _and_ smelled like the floor of a gas station bathroom.”

“You knew?” Sean wipes his eyes. “But all that stuff you said, just now, about me being ‘responsible’ and ‘a good man’. . .”

Dad slides over to the rock Sean sits on, and his arm is heavy like a blanket over Sean’s shoulders. “Do I want you drinking?” Dad says. “No, of course not. But I know this is a thing kids do, and it is a thing they keep from their parents. But part of being your _papá_ is trusting you to make choices and knowing I might not always like them. But even when you make mistakes, that does not make you not responsible. Everyone makes mistakes, Sean. Everyone does bad things. Sometimes it is because those are the only choices they can make. But I know your heart, and I know you are a kind boy. A good man. I know there is nothing you can ever do that will change how proud I am of you.”

The warmth of Dad’s calloused hand rests on Sean’s neck. But then Dad takes the lighter, and for a moment, Sean thinks Dad really is taking it back. But instead, he lights its flame and hands it back to Sean.

“I got this lighter the day I left Puerto Lobos,” Dad says. “On impulse. I guess I wanted something from my home. It has traveled thousands of miles with me. There were times that I felt lost, and I would stare at the flame and remember who I was, where I had come from, and what I wanted to be. I know this is corny, but I hope that if you ever feel lost, it will be a light to remind you of your way.”

“That _is_ pretty corny, Dad,” Sean chuckles. But he watches the flame dance above his fingers. He’s fourteen, and it is hard to understand what he feels let alone put it into words. It’s gratitude. And relief. And this overwhelming sense that he is lucky to be Esteban Diaz’s son, that life wouldn’t be as good without him. “You’re the best dad. I love you. I’m sorry I don’t say it more.”

“You don’t have to. I know,” Dad says. “I love you too, Sean. _Siempre y siempre_.”

# # #

_Diaz Repair Shop_

_Puerto Lobos, Mexico_

_June 2024_

_Seven years and eight months after the death of Esteban Diaz._

Sean drags the boat onto the shore, flips it over so it’s less likely to be pulled to sea if he has misjudged the reach of the tide. Then he trudges across the sand towards the house. First, he’ll check on Daniel. Then he’ll clean up the garage. With any luck, Daniel will sleep until morning, wake up, and this whole episode will seem like a bad dream.

The kid has had enough trauma in his life. He doesn’t need to add “got kidnapped by meth dealers” to the list.

But when Sean pushes open the door to the garage, Daniel stands like a ghost.

The blood on the concrete has dried, but rusty flakes stick to the toes of Daniel’s white socks. The kid’s face is pale, and his eyes move from the chair Arial died in to the brass bullet casing on the floor.

“You should be in bed,” Sean says.

Daniel waves his hand, and the teeth Sean knocked out of Arial’s gums rise from the floor. They float above Daniel’s palm and spin in a slow orbit, like tiny, broken moons around an invisible sun. “What are these?”

Sean sighs, runs a hand through his greasy hair. Years ago he made a promise never to lie to his brother, and it’s maybe the only thing he is still honest about. “Arial Aguilar and Vicente Herrera drugged and kidnapped you. I needed to know where you were. Arial wouldn’t tell me. Those are his teeth.”

Daniel closes his fist, and the teeth drop. In the quiet of the night, they clatter against the concrete. “Is he dead?”

Sean stares up at the ceiling. They must have a leak; there’s a water stain. One more thing he’ll have to fix, he thinks, but he nods. Yes, Arial is dead.

“Did you kill him?” Daniel asks.

“Yeah, I did,” Sean says, resentful that Daniel makes him say it aloud. “And I shot Vince too. On his front porch, just so we are laying all of my sins out on the table.”

“What the hell, Sean? “ Daniel says. “You _murdered_ someone.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Sean mutters.

“The blood on the floor. The teeth! It looks like you tortured him. This was in our _home_ , Sean. In _Dad’s_ house.”

“It’s not Dad’s house because Dad isn’t here!” Sean snaps. He takes a breath. Squeezes the bridge of his nose. “Look, _enano_ , they knew where we live. And they weren’t afraid of your powers. They weren’t life those gang bangers last year. You couldn’t scare them off. We would not have been safe.”

“And you think we are ‘safe’ if you do shit like this?” Daniel crosses his skinny arms across his chest. “What if Vince and Arial had friends? What if the police show up?”

“The police in Puerto Lobos don’t give a shit.” It has been a long, shitty day. And Sean still has a garage to clean, evidence to destroy. And Daniel should be resting, not making things more complicated than they are. “Look, I had to deal with things. I had to get my brother back. Don’t get so high-and-mighty with me. It’s not like you haven’t killed people, too.”

The words are out before Sean can stop them.

And Daniel’s eyes widen like he has been slapped across the face.

“Fuck you,” Daniel says quietly. “That cop that killed Dad, those cops at the border, the thugs we hit when we first got here—I have nightmares about them, Sean.”

“I know,” Sean sighs. “When I go to the bathroom at night, I hear you whimpering in your sleep. I know those things tear you up. I would take that guilt away from you. If I could.”

“I don’t want you to take it away from me. You already do too much as it is.” Daniel sighs, and he walks over to the workbench. The photo of him, Sean, and Esteban is still facedown, and he picks it up. Studies their family in better days. “I don’t want to be the bad guys, Sean. Killing people when we were on the run, when we had to get away, when we had no money and were trying to survive—that is one thing. What you did today, that’s different. You didn’t _have_ to do this.”

“Yes, I did,” Sean says, and he notices his right sneaker is brown with dried blood. He’ll finally have to get new ones. “I think we disagree about what has to be done to survive. About what we have to do to keep this family safe.”

Daniel doesn’t say anything. Stands there, unblinking. Sort of like he is studying a book, written in the Spanish he still doesn’t speak fluently, trying to make sense of something he should understand better by now.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Sean says. “Like I’m some kind of monster. Like you don’t recognize me.”

“You’re not a monster,” Daniel says quietly. “And I know Sean Diaz is a good person.”

“Sean Diaz _was_ a good person,” Sean says. “But I think he died the day his father did.”

The silence that fills the garage is thick, suffocating. Sean pulls the lighter from his pocket, traces the worn words _Puerto Lobos_ with his thumb. He flicks it open and watches the flame dance above his fingers.

_If you ever feel lost, it will be a light to remind you of your way._

Is he lost?

The quiet, insecure, selfless kid whose dad handed him this lighter sure wouldn’t recognize the person he has become.

Sean looks around the garage. When he and Daniel arrived in Puerto Lobos, the house was rundown, vandalized. They’ve cleaned it up, built a nice shop in it. But right now, the floor is stained with blood. And that’s Sean’s fault.

Sean studies his brother. Scrawny. Scarred. Daniel has been through too much for someone who is only seventeen, but he still has a whole life ahead of him.

He’s a good kid. He could still be a good man.

Even if it is too late for Sean to be.

“I don’t regret any of the choices I have made because they have kept us safe,” Sean says into the flame. “But that doesn’t mean I made the right ones. This is not the life I wanted for you.”

The lid of the lighter clinks shut, snuffing out the flame. And Sean waves his brother over, then hugs him close. Tight. The kid smells like sweat and weed and chlorine gas and motor oil. His skin is cold, and it reminds Sean of all those nights they slept beside each other, when he would wake up with Daniel’s cold feet against him.

Sean takes a deep breath. Tries to draw this memory into the sketchbook of his brain.

Then he whispers, “You are always going to be my brother, and I will _always_ love you, _enano_ , even if . . . even if you make a choice that you think might hurt me. I want you to be safe. And I want you to be happy. But I want you to do what is best for you. And I know you deserve better than this. Do you understand what I am saying?’

Sean pulls away, and Daniel’s eyes are pink. The kid sniffles. But he nods.

“Good,” Sean says. Tells himself he is relieved that this is straightforward. That there’s no drama. He’s had enough drama to fill two lifetimes.

“Can I help you clean up at least?” Daniel asks.

“Sure, _enano_ ,” Sean says, and he grabs a bucket so they can mop up the blood.

# # #

The next afternoon, Sean walks up to the porch of Vince’s sisters house. The duffle bag he carries smells like a swimming pool, but inside is $10,000 worth of pesos.

It’s enough money to change someone’s life.

He wonders if he should knock on the door. But she might be home, and what does he say if she answers? _Hey, I’m the asshole who shot your brother. Here’s his drug money._

So instead, he drops the bag on the porch. It’s hidden by the railing, and, besides, anyone walking down the street will assume it’s just someone’s sweaty soccer gear. Even if it gets stolen, anyone strolling through this neighborhood has had a hard enough life that they deserve the break too.

When Sean gets back to his tow truck, he picks up the envelop sitting on the dash. He wasn’t surprised to find it on the kitchen counter this morning, his name written on the outside in Daniel’s messy handwriting.

It’s unopened. He’s pretty sure he knows what it says. So he drives back to the house, gets some work done on some cars. And as he sits on his back patio, watching the sun set over the ocean where he dumped Arial’s body, he finally opens the letter.

It’s not very long. But it says Daniel has left.

_I need to figure things out. For myself_ , it says. _But I hope you find yourself, too. Sean Diaz is a good person. I know he is. I know he can still choose who he wants to be._

_I love you, mi hermano. Siempre y siempre._

_Thanks. For everything._

_Goodbye._

_(for now)_


End file.
